Monday, November 01, 2010

Long Beach Comic Con was quite an experience. It was our first large scale event and really gave us a swift kick in the collective asses. I gotta say it was nice having badges and entering through the back door ( insert perverted joke here ).

We got there early Friday morning. Wide eyed and full of glee, we walked through the floor, taking in all the sights and sounds of the pre-comic con hustle and bustle. When we arrived at Artist Alley the tables were not numbered and we had to rely on a tiny printout of the floor plan to figure out where are table was. Luckily we read the floor plan correctly and found our spot. We then became the information booth for all other artists coming after us wondering where the hell their table was located. After setting up Neil had to drive down to Torrance to pick up the stickers he had ordered 3 weeks ago in a rush to get back in time for the grand opening. He arrived back just in time with a bag of McDonalds and a scorn for the parking attendant who made him pay the parking fee again because they do not allow reentry once you leave. Ray had already gotten to know the neighbors and just like out of the comic introduced Neil as the guy he had been telling them about. We were very lucky to have a wonderful, funny, exciting, energetic, magical, crazy group of people around us.

As the doors opened we sat in anticipation wondering what the reaction would be to our little homemade comic and if anyone would even buy it. The day started off slow, but picked up later in the day as people got out of school and work. We made our first sale sometime in afternoon, and were over the moon about it! Trying to keep our cool, we signed the comic and thanked the buyer for his support. Our first sale.

As the day went on the sales continued and things were looking good, really good. When Neil's wife Joanna showed up, Ray and Neil took a much needed break. When they returned Joanna had sold 4 more comics! Needless to say she worked the booth the rest of the day.

Saturday was a great day, we more then doubled our sales and received some very positive feedback. Our friends Ramon and Tiffany joined us at the booth and did a little street team work, passing out stickers and postcards on the floor.

Sunday was laid back. We were feeling more confident about talking to people and although we did not do as good as we did on Saturday, we still past up fridays sales. All in all it was a great learning experience.

We asked a few neighboring artists to do a sketch for our comic. Here are their amazing works:

We couldn't have asked for a better table mate than Sheika Lugtu. She does as online semi-daily diary comic. She struggled a little the at first with sales, mostly because she didn't have anything to sell. At one point she started to do these little card sized drawings out of boredom. Soon after that people were flocking to her table to get these precious works of art. All we could do was watch in amazement as people bought her art as fast as she could pump them out. What a talent.

Shane and Chris Houghton (aka The Dales) have a fun, cowboy western comic called Reed Gunther. We learned a lot from them, these 2 brothers really got there act together. We are so glad to have met them and thankful for all their advise.

We met Chris Waterman and were just blown away by his passion for illustration and comic creating. He was telling us about his latest character METULHED. We can't wait to see what he does with this. We know it's gonna be good.

Robert Quill is a true convention pro. With a slight of his hand and the smoothest of lines he draws people to his booth with copperfield like magic. Even when distracted by us trying to learn the ways of the force, he still manages to be effective. We can learn a lot from him.

We sat across from John Narcomey Jr. at the San Gabriel Valley Comic Book Festival and it was a pleasure to be by him for this comic con. John is another comic con pro busting out drawings with lighting speed. I picked up his Cholo Libre comic.

This is just a cool picture. Angus Oblong, creator of the Oblongs, eating a Forever Freshman sticker!

We got a great response from people. They are already asking when the next issue is coming out. We are ready to start the next story, and should have that out early next year. After that it's on to a full length 32-pager. We are more motivated than ever to take this to the next level. So, keep checking back for updates.